Surprising Pennsylvania Poll Shows Romney Up Big!

Verne Strickland Blogmaster / October 22, 2012

Surprising Pennsylvania Poll Shows Romney Up Big

October 22, 2012 By Doug Book 1 Comment

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Not only does the Rasmussen Daily Tracking poll show Romney up 2 points today; not only does the Rasmussen Swing State poll show Romney up 49-46 today (included are 11 states which Obama won 53-46 in 2008); not only is Romney up by 50-37 among swing state independents—but now Susquehanna Polling and Research (SPR) shows Mitt Romney up 49-45 in the normally deep blue state of Pennsylvania.

SPR is an automated poll of 1,376 likely voters, taken between October 11-13. Although its results do not include the 2nd presidential debate, Gallup incorporates over 50% of the post-debate days in its 7 day rolling average poll and Rasmussen includes only days since the debate. Yet neither of these polls show any sort of debate performance bounce for Barack Obama even though the national media proclaimed the president a clear winner over Romney. In fact, both polls show Romney in the lead, indeed a substantial lead of 7 points from the Gallup people.
Most remarkable in the SPR poll is the Democrat/Republican/Independent split. Beginning months ago, many polls have incorporated a Democrat sample comparable to or larger than the Democrat turnout of +8 in 2008. Naturally, Republicans and conservatives have railed against this phony sample as it has tended to propel Obama into leads which he will not enjoy come Election Day.
But the SPR poll has Romney up by 4 although it uses a split of 48% Democrat, 42% Republican and 10% Independent! A six point advantage for Democrats yields a 4 point advantage for Mitt Romney! And Independents account for only 10% of poll respondents. As Romney holds a fairly commanding lead among Independents in many polls across the nation—and certainly in swing states—a larger share of independents will certainly yield an advantage for the governor. And Independents generally account for some 30% of respondents in most polls.
Is the SPR poll an outlier? Apparently Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan doesn’t think so as he campaigned in Western Pennsylvania over the weekend. This can only mean the Republican team has acquired internal polling results which make it clear that campaigning in Pennsylvania can pay off on November 6th. After all, Barack Obama has been a declared enemy of the coal industry nationwide and Western Pennsylvania has made its living with coal for many, many decades!
Internals of the SPR poll are cited by the Washington Examiner. Take the time to review these and make up your own mind about the validity of the Susquehanna poll. It might turn out that SPR is much closer to the final result in Pennsylvania than CNN, the New York Times or CBS News.